Mama Do
by Ciara in cotton socks
Summary: Rose loves Scorpius, of that she is sure.  But she is tired of living for brief, stolen kisses when nobody else can see.  Tired of living a lie.  Faced with the ultimate decision, will Rose hold onto her love for the wrong boy, or protect the family name?


**A/N: Written for the wonderful ToManyLetters's 'Turn It Up Louder! Oneshot' competition. The idea was to take a song from Pixie Lott's album, **_**Turn It Up Louder! **_**and write a oneshot based on said song. This attempt, as you may have guessed, takes its inspiration from **_**Mama Do**_**.**

**This is only my second foray into the Rose/Scorpius relationship, and as such all feedback, both positive and constructively critical, is greatly appreciated. Here's hoping it's an acceptable read, as well as an acceptable contest entry!**

**Kisses,**

**Ciara**

**/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/**

It was a late December night and the members of Gryffindor house were huddled away in their tower dormitories. A cold wind whistled through the old stone of the castle walls, but the students were oblivious to its intrusion, safe and warm in their beds.

In the Sixth Year girls' dormitory, four figures lay in peaceful slumber, the only sound that of Iris Finnigan's soft snuffling snores. Every so often, one of the girls rolled over in her sleep and the crisply ironed sheets crackled quietly. An easy tranquillity seemed to hold every member of the dormitory, all bar one.

Rose Weasley lay flat on her back within the sanctuary of the crimson drapes surrounding her four-poster, thinking. She had gone up to bed with the rest of the girls after a particularly competitive game of Exploding Snap had left Lorcan Scamander with singed eyebrows and her cousin James bearing a nasty burn down his left cheek, but while Iris and the others had drifted almost immediately into relaxed slumber, Rose had remained wide awake for several hours. She lay on top of her duvet cover, oblivious to the cold. Once she was certain that the rest of the girls were sound asleep she had fished a simple Muggle torch from her trunk and used it to read the letter currently clutched in her sweaty palm. Her mother had written to her earlier that day, a typical Hermione Weasley letter enquiring about her schoolwork and test results, and informing Rose that they would be spending Christmas at the Burrow this year, as Grandpa Weasley wasn't up to travelling. Tagged on at the end of the piece of parchment, as usual, was her father's untidy, sprawling warning to stay away from all boys, especially what he referred to as 'slimy, half-troll Slytherins'. Rose's knuckles were turning white as she grasped the letter. An internal debate raged within her for the longest time, before a quiet tapping on the window jolted her from her thoughts. For a moment, she froze. The tapping grew louder.

Tentatively, Rose eased herself out of bed and padded across the rich red carpet to the closed window. She pressed a palm to the cold window pane and glanced out the window. Sure enough, a familiar shock of blonde hair was visible against a black school cloak. Rose stared down at the figure waving emphatically to her, unsure whether to laugh or cry, before she gingerly pried the window open.

"Rosie, it's bloody freezing out here!"

"Ssh, will you?" Rose hissed back. "Someone will hear."

"Then get yourself down here, now!" Scorpius called. He rubbed his hands together and shot her a plaintive look that Rose could recognise, even from such a great distance. "Come on Rosie, please."

Rose hesitated for a long moment and then nodded. "I'll be down in five minutes. Keep out of sight."

She shut the window as quietly as possible and turned to fish Albus's invisibility cloak, which she had borrowed earlier in exchange for doing his Potions homework, from her overflowing trunk. She jammed her feet into a pair of shoes and wrapped her dressing gown tight around her slight frame, clutching the cloak to her chest. She was about to leave the room when she heard a noise behind her.

"Rose?" yawned Iris, struggling upright and running a hand through her tousled mop of sandy-blonde hair. "'S that you?"

"Yeah," Rose whispered back, hastily hiding the cloak behind her back. "I'm just going to use the bathroom."

"'K," Iris nodded, already drifting back to sleep. Before anybody else could spot her, Rose dodged out the door and quietly slipped through the deserted common room.

/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/

Five minutes later, Rose slid out through the heavy front doors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and into the bitter wind outside. The invisibility cloak remained safely stowed in her pocket; she hadn't needed it this time. A quick glance around told her that the grounds were devoid of human life; Scorpius must be down by the lake, a favourite haunt of theirs. Rose loved it too, but not in the middle of the night, nor in mid-December. Crossly, she began to walk across the dewy grass towards the rippling waters of the Black Lake. As she walked, she thought. She thought about Scorpius, about _her_ and Scorpius, and what had been going on between them over the last few months. It was only since September that he had become something more than civil to her, but their relationship had blossomed quickly into something Rose was scared to think of as love. It pained her that such a burning romance had to be carried out behind closed doors and in the twilight hours when prying eyes were blind to their stolen embraces, but true love, as her Uncle George often told her, never seemed to run smooth. There were other people to consider in all of this, things more complicated than Scorpius seemed able to understand. Reputations to protect. Family names to consider.

"Galleon for your thoughts," a voice whispered in her ear, and Rose barely managed to contain an ear-splitting squeal. Instead, she whirled around to find herself trapped in an embrace by Scorpius Malfoy, who was smirking mischievously at her with a maddening air she had come to know all too well. Ordinarily, she would playfully jab him in the arm and steal in under his guard to press a chaste kiss to his hungry lips. Tonight, however, she pulled away from him and strode quickly towards the edge of the lake. Scorpius's pace quickened as he hurried to keep up with her.

"Rosie, what's wrong?" he asked, bewildered. Rose swallowed the lump in her throat and continued to pace around the lake; she was sure she could see the giant squid's tentacles waving lazily towards the middle of the choppy waters. Scorpius's hand locked around her wrist, and this time she couldn't shake him off. She turned, grudgingly, to find his gentle grey eyes searching her face, hurt and anxious. "Did I do something wrong? Because whatever it is, I'm sorry."

Rose couldn't help but chuckle drily; it was such a typically Scorpius Malfoy thing to say. She reached out a hand and sadly trailed it the length of his pale, oval-shaped face. Scorpius held her cold fingers to his cheek and shook his head slightly.

"What's wrong Rose?" he whispered tensely, sensing that something was brewing beneath her calm exterior. "Rose?"

"I got a letter from my mum this evening," she said quietly, drawing away from him and trailing towards the edge of the lake. She crouched down and let her fingers skim the dark, murky surface. The lump pressed hard against her throat.

"Oh. I-is everything alright at home?"

"What?" Rose asked distractedly. "I-yes, yes of course. Mum wanted to tell me that we'd be spending Christmas at the Burrow this year. With the rest of the family."

"And?"

"And I don't think I'll be able to see you, Scor," Rose said in a quiet voice. She was sure the finality in her tone was obvious, but apparently Scorpius did not agree. He just shook his head again and came to sit on the gravelly lakeshore next to her, wrapping a toned arm around her shivering form.

"Is that all? Merlin Rose, you had me worried there. It'll be fine, all you have to do is Floo yourself out of there for an hour or two. Everyone will be running everywhere, they won't even notice you're gone. It'll be fine."

He smiled encouragingly, but it was Rose's turn to shake her head. She removed Scorpius's arm from around her and instead clasped it between both of hers. She shot him a sad, watery smile.

"I don' think you understand," she whispered brokenly. "I don't think I'll be able to see you, not anymore."

"Rosie, where is this-"

"I'm tired, Scor," Rose interjected. "I'm tired of all this sneaking around behind everyone's backs. I'm lying to them, to my friends. To Al and Lily and Dom. I'm sneaking out to meet you when nobody else can see, I'm snatching kisses in deserted corridors between classes. It's too much, Scor. I'm not a liar, I'm a _Gryffindor_, and at first I thought all the hiding and sneaking around was romantic. Now I'm just tired of it."

"Rose, why didn't you say something sooner?" Scorpius said with a strangled half-laugh. "I was only up for all this secrecy because you wanted it. If it were up to me I'd be all over you every chance I got, no matter who was watching, because I just want them to know that you're mine. And it's good that you're tired, it is, because now we can stop the pretence and tell everyone that-"

"Don't you see?" Rose gasped, attempting to prevent tears from spilling down her cheeks. She looked beseechingly at Scorpius, her lip trembling violently. "I can't do that Scorpius, I can't. My mum, she sent me this letter, and she told me my grandpa's not doing so well."

"Rosie, I'm so sorry, I-"

"Could you just stop being sorry and listen for a minute?" Rose snapped through her tears. "He's sick, Scor, and I love you, I do, but if he were to find out, it would kill him. All of them. I want you to listen to me, alright? Really listen. I have come to love you Scorpius, and I know you're not like the rest of the Slytherins. Even Al and James agree, though they won't admit it. But my family... they're of a different generation, Scor. And no matter how wonderful and sweet and romantic you are, the fact remains that your father let terrible things happen to my mother in your home. In your _home_, Scor. How do you think she'd feel, what do you think she'd _do_, if she knew the truth about us. Or my dad, or Uncle Harry or anyone else in my family for that matter? My dad would kill you on principle, and I'm pretty sure my uncle George wouldn't be far behind."

"Rose, that's not fair," Scorpius said in a low, dangerous voice. "You know how hard I've had to work to shrug off my father's reputation, the things he did."

"I do, believe me, I do," Rose agreed. "And when we're together, it's nearly perfect. It's so easy to forget everyone else when I'm with you. We're just Rose and Scorpius, and there's no Weasley and no Malfoy. But we can't escape that forever Scor, you know that as well as I do."

"How do you know?" he challenged her, his jaw jutted stubbornly. "They might support us, they might understand how hard this is for us, making this work."

"Don't be naive," Rose laughed bitterly. "Scorpius, when I'm around them, I hear how they talk about your family, how they feel. They can't mention any of you without getting angry or disgusted, and I can't hear them talk about you without feeling guilty. I don't want to feel guilty Scor. I don't want to disappoint them."

She paused and drew in a deep, steadying breath. This was the hardest part, the part that was going to send everything spiralling downwards into catastrophe. The part that was going to rip her apart at the seams, irreversibly and irreparably, and tear Scorpius into a thousand tiny pieces. Her heart hammered against her ribcage, and the part of her that seemed to get warmer every time she laid eyes on Scorpius was screaming at her to stop this idiocy. But the Weasley in her was stronger, as she had known it would be in the end, even as she had kissed Scorpius for the first time in one of the school's lesser-known secret passageways. She staggered to her feet and dropped Scorpius's hand as though it had burned her. Her eyes locked into his, beseeching him not to hate her, even though some small part of her knew he always would, at least a little.

"I'm sorry Scorpius. I love you, I always will. But I love my family more."

He didn't even try to stop her from fleeing, and that hurt more than if he had hurled insults and curses at her. She wished he would, wished he would throw something or hex her or _something_. But he just sat there, skimming stones across the surface of the lake, and Rose walked back up to the castle, numb and alone.

Nobody heard her slip back into the dormitory ten minutes later, and nobody heard her quiet sobs as she Vanished the handful of snapshots she owned of herself and Scorpius, the ones she kept hidden in her bedside locker.

She would not sleep that night, or for several nights after. Al and Lily and Dom would fret and tell her she looked ill, but Rose had her mother's wit and would come up with some excuse to put them off. She would ghost through her classes until the end of term, and then when she finally got to the Burrow, surrounded by her family, it would all be worth it.

That was what Rose told herself, sitting hunched at the window on a hard, cold chair in the middle of the night, but it didn't help to ease the pain crushing her from all sides. Nothing, not the thoughts of her friends, or the photos of her family, not even her mother's familiar handwriting clutched tightly in her shaking palms, could do that.


End file.
